1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for recognizing a hand motion.
2. Description of the Related Art
3D motion recognizing systems have been used in various application fields such as human-computer interaction (HCl), motion capture for computer graphics, gesture/action recognition for image monitoring, healthcare, and the like. In particular, 3D motion recognizing systems have drawn much attention as a core technique enabling natural user interface for smart devices or interactive digital content.
In such a 3D motion recognizing system, a method and apparatus for recognizing a hand motion are expected to infinitely increase the value of user interface such as promoting diversity of user interfaces and maximizing user convenience.
However, current 3D motion recognizing systems may be able to extract skeletal joints from a depth map image to recognize a user motion, and generally, resolution of a depth map may allow for extraction of a position of large skeletal joints (elbow, knee, wrist, and the like) but it is not sufficient to recognize a shape of a finger.
A related art providing a solution to this problem includes a technique of analyzing a skeletal joint using a depth camera and identifying a finger based on a skin color from an RGB image. However, the use of an RGB image may lessen accuracy of an algorithm due to different skin colors of different races, and an RGB image cannot be checked in a state in which lighting is dim, making it impossible to identify a hand gesture.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of, understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.